Hero talents are a hot topic these days.
But I don’t see this spec getting much better unless the underlying performance changes. I think the next expansion should address these issues first, rather than hero talents, before it can be considered a good spec.
- delete useless utilities and create unique synergies
I don’t think these would detract from the uniqueness of the shaman class without them.
Slow totem, Tranquil air totem
Just increasing the number of buttons for no real point.
Stone skin totem, Poison cleansing totem
These are utilities that are either too useful or too useless.
Healing stream totem, earth shield, Ancestral Guidance, Chain heal
These buttons are meaningless except for AG.
Why not just give a big CD and keep one of the skills, delete the rest and make it more effective?
Since Shaman is our class, it seems like a good idea to buff the heal totem significantly and increase the CD to make it meaningful.
I think something like removing WFT from enh and adding a haste or mastery synergy totem to shaman is also needed. The WFT only helps certain specs a lot, so it’s better to change it to something else.
- Skill spam issues
One of the problems with ele is that it becomes a 1-button spam spec towards the end of the expansion. At the end of recent extensions, it eventually became the one button spec.
My opinion is that it’s fundamentally the fact that Crit doesn’t apply to LvB, but applies heavily to LB, that triggers this issue.
It’s obvious that LB need to have high Crits to be powerful, but this doesn’t work for LvB.
Eventually, as your gear gets better, you’ll have to choose between LB and LvB, and you won’t want to use skills you don’t choose. It’s just a matter of whether it’s LB or LvB.
And LvB is far too common, even with CD.
I think we need to limit the number of LvBs and overhaul the talents that provide them.
My idea is to increase the CD and DMG of LvBs, reduce the number of LvBs provided by various talents, and increase Lava surge,
give a mechanic where using LB reduces the CD of LvB, etc.
I think it would be nice to provide more connections between each skill.
- CL issue
The complex mechanics of CL, where each target has its own probability of triggering overloads, is what makes ele sensitive to the number of targets.
I don’t know why these mechanisms are necessary.
This is also a problem that makes ele a good spec only in certain situations, and makes it difficult to respond to different situations.
As a result, we end up with weird problems that are not intuitively obvious, like the question of whether to use CL or LB on 2targets.
Why not have CL only trigger overload on the primary target?
Also, this is just a personal opinion, but I wonder if it would be better to remove LB and just use CL.
There are more issues, but I’ve written down what I think are the core problems with ele.
I’m sure I’m not the only one, and many others think similarly.
Clearly, over the years, ele has not been able to perform reliably playable. The spec is fundamentally only potentially good in special circumstances, which is why it can’t perform reliably.
I believe the issues I’ve described are the core problems.
I’ve been writing about this before the start of every expansion.
Hopefully, the next expansion will take good feedback, even if it’s not necessarily my feedback, and improve performance so that it’s welcoming and playable for everyone.